by T. F. Grant
“Okay.” Tai pulled his persuader from its holster beside his chair. “Kina, on the cutting lance. Tooize, open the hatch. Those poor bastards won’t have long.”
“You don’t need that.” Hela pointed at the shotgun. “They don’t have a choice.”
“Insurance,” Tai said.
“Good idea.” She unzipped her suit and rested her hand on the hilt of her favorite sword.
“You carry that thing inside a pressure suit?” Kina asked. She had removed her suit helmet and pulled on a pair of welder’s goggles.
“Insurance,” Hela replied.
Kina shook her head, yanked the goggles down over her eyes, and fired up the cutting lance.
SEVEN
“My eyes, my precious eyes!” Bookworm fell back as a bright red glow burst through the hull. Sara and the others averted their eyes from the bright line burning its way through the hull plating. Even the brief glimpse of that light had made Sara’s eyes water, and spots danced in her gaze for a few minutes.
“It’s okay,” Margo said. “They’ve come to rescue us.”
Able to see again, Sara leaned over Bookworm. “Are you okay?” She pulled his hands away from his face. A few specs of dust lay on his square spectacle lenses. “You’re fine, man. Get up.”
Bookworm opened his eyes sheepishly, blinked, and smiled. “So I am. Sara, watch out.”
He grabbed her leg and pushed her to the side while he raised his pistol and aimed it at a man holding an agricultural-looking gun.
Beside him stood a smaller woman with scars on her face and a lizard-like creature with four arms.
A fourth person, an athletic woman with short jet-black hair and eye goggles, held a cutting torch and a wide grin. They were all wearing spacesuits, but they were all opened to the waist—revealing quite a lot of weaponry.
“Put that down, friend,” the man said.
“Who the hell are you people?” DeLaney said, clearly affronted at the armed greeting.
“I’m your savior, ladies and gents, but you can call me Tai. You better come with us. I don’t think your ship’s got long.”
“No thanks to your reckless piloting,” Sara added. “You hit us.”
The man flashed her a grin and bowed at the waist. “Didn’t do too much damage, though. You’re all still alive.”
“Where are we?” Sara asked, trying to avoid the glare from the scar-faced woman.
“Hollow Space. You’ve got a lot to learn and not a lot of time to learn it. And you’re on my time, so let’s get moving before the scavengers get here.”
“Scavengers?”
“You don’t think you can fly about with all the titanium on show and not catch the eye of salvagers, do you?”
A crack of ruptured metal echoed from the bridge, accompanied by the hissing noise of depressurizing.
“Right, we’re going with them. Let’s go,” DeLaney said.
He pushed Prescott ahead of him. The young aristo stumbled over the boundary between the two ships and gave a yelp. The force of his movement gave him quite a bit of momentum, and he flew across the other ship. There was a loud crash, followed by some explosive whistles that sounded like some sort of language.
“Oh, yeah, forgot to mention,” Tai said. “No grav-plates on the Mary-May, so it’s a zeroed environment.”
“Zeroed?” Sara asked.
“Zero G,” the pretty girl with the cutting torch said. “Double zeroed means no air, no G.”
“You do know how to handle zero G?” Tai asked.
“Of course,” DeLaney snapped and stepped across the boundary into Tai’s ship. Another crash.
The scar-faced woman glanced over her shoulder. “He did better than the last one.”
Humphrey stepped through between the two ships. Tai cocked his head, listening. No crash. He glanced at the scar-faced woman.
“Bounce, bounce, sit. Good enough. Lofreal looks almost impressed.”
Sara helped Bookworm to his feet and, along with the Hentian twins, followed Humphrey into the other ship. She hadn’t been in a minimal, not zero like these savages called it, G environment since her basic training nearly five years before. But she remembered the gist of it.
Sara ducked out of the way of the large, imposing and feather-covered creature. He made a strange whistling noise at her as she passed.
Ducking just before stepping into zero G was not a good idea. Sara flipped over and spun across the small cabin. She resisted the urge to move her arms, looked below her, and saw where she would hit. She twisted until she hit feet first and flexed her knees to absorb the force of the impact. She grabbed hold of a stanchion before she could float away again.
“This is yours.” Tai slapped the seat of a G-couch as he passed. Using the slap to flip over, he boosted off the bulkhead above, down to the floor, up and down into his seat, all with a smooth balletic grace that told of long practice.
Compared to him, Sara felt like a toddler, but she resolved to get to her seat without incident.
Once everyone was inside the small ship, the four-armed creature closed the airlock. A weird quadruped creature that resembled a sad dog bounced around in the zero-G environment as if it was completely at home. It had a mournful face and two stubby arms. She guessed it was some sort of pet.
—I am called Reginous Phan, the voice whispered into her mind. —And I am not a pet.
Sara gulped. This was a very strange place.
—It is indeed.
The woman with the cutting lance placed it in a rack and joined Tai in the cockpit.
“Kronacs,” Margo said, reaching out to stroke the downy feathers of the lizard-like creature. “You’re magnificent,” she said. Of the ones in the ship, this one seemed to have an eye missing, with just two. He brought his head down and allowed Margo to scratch behind the thin flap that made up his ear. Again, the strange whistle.
“That’s Tooize,” Tai said. “He likes you, my lovely, so you can stroke him, but he says if the bald one tries it, he’ll break his arm off and call him One-Arm.” Tai shrugged. “Kronac humor. It can be a little blunt.”
“Good judges of character, though,” the woman sitting next to Tai said. “I’m Kina.” She grinned at Sara.
Blushing, Sara pushed off from the wall and floated slowly across the cabin to Bookworm. He was sitting on the last seat in the rear of the ship in a state of shock.
He shook his head at Sara and lifted his hands. “This is crazy.”
Carefully bracing herself so that she didn’t float away, Sara patted him on the shoulder. “We’re still alive. That’s all that matters.”
“If you say so.”
Turning from him, Sara took a deep breath and kicked off again, aiming for the cockpit of the ship. The scar-faced woman, her suit open to reveal a red leather jacket, stood in her way, one foot hooked around a G-couch’s leg. Although Sara stood half a foot taller, something about this other woman’s look, probably the scars and the hilt of a sword protruding from her spacesuit, told Sara she’d better not screw with her.
So she twisted slightly, grabbed another handy handhold with her left hand, and braked to a stop. She held out her right hand and said, “Hi, I’m Sara Lorelle, the chief co-navigator for the Venture. I wanted to—”
“I don’t care who you are. Sit down and shut up,” the small woman said, ignoring her hand and turning away dismissively.
Tai looked over his shoulder while manipulating the levers of the ship. “Ignore her, Ms. Lorelle. She’s always this bad-tempered.”
“Only when we divert from the agreed contract, Tairon Cauder.”
“That explains the perma-grimace, then,” Tai said, giving Sara a wink.
Sara sighed inwardly. She didn’t like the cut of this guy’s jib—far too cocky and sure of his own abilities. The copilot, however, now she looked like someone Sara wouldn’t mind getting to know. She had that mischievous grin that told her she’d be fun.
Sara maneuvered her way to the cockpit, found
a fold-out seat, and sat down, gripping onto a handhold above her head that had seen better days.
In fact, the entire ship had seen better days. As Tai and his copilot maneuvered the ship away, Sara saw the last of the air puff out from the ruined Venture, carrying the corpses of their dead with it. They floated away into space like pieces of garbage.
Sara gulped back vomit and turned away from that forlorn sight to scan the place. In the back, by the hatch—this thing didn’t even have a proper airlock—the kronacs were standing over Bookworm, making him squirm in his low-slung, heavily padded, and very old-fashioned G-couch.
DeLaney looked like he would break out in tears any moment, much to the apparent amusement of the Hentians, who seemed to have made friends with the kronacs quickly.
“Hold onto your genitals, ladies and gents,” Tai said before pushing a lever all the way forward. The thrusters of the small ship kicked in, and Sara’s muscles tensed as she gripped the handhold and tried not to allow the G-force to throw her into the kronacs and into Reginous Phan, who now sat quietly in a nook, its body held in place with a harness.
—Don’t worry, Sara. You’ll adjust to Hollow Space in time. The voice tickled her mind as she heard the voice come through clear as anything, its soft, soothing tones giving her the impression of kindness.
Sara mouthed the words, “Thank you.” For what, she didn’t really know, only that she felt the need to acknowledge the creature and, by doing so, demystify this whole event.
In all her years working on the colony ships, she’d never seen these kinds of aliens.
It wasn’t entirely unusual to come across new ones, but it was always a bit of a culture shock, especially as they didn’t have Crown Central Intelligence to give them dossiers of new species and their etiquette and protocols.
The crew settled down as Tai sped the ship toward the space station. In faded letters, the word Haven could just be made out on its vast pitted surface.
It was like a giant, dirty diamond. A pair of blinking lights on an extended platform guided the ship in.
Tai manipulated the levers and brought the craft in with considerable skill. Entirely too fast and reckless, but skilled nonetheless.
He planted the ship into place on the dock. Through the cockpit window, Sara could make out a woman in red leather surrounded by a heavily armed entourage. At least the station had its own gravity. She was already sick of zero G.
“Time to chat with Mother dearest,” Tai said.
EIGHT
Tai looked around. “Get them out of those suits,” he said to Hela. “There are emergency suits racked up under the flight deck.”
She nodded.
“Hey,” said the man with blue eyes behind tiny square glasses. “What the hell do you mean, get them out of those suits? You ain’t in charge of us.”
Tai gazed into those eyes and reassessed the man. There was steel there, hidden beneath the bluster. “What’s your name?”
“Call me Bookworm.”
Tai laughed, deliberately needling the man. He wanted to see what he did. “Seriously, that’s the name your mother gave you?”
“No,” Bookworm said.
“Then what is your real name, Bookworm, me old son.”
Bookworm tilted his head to one side, and Tai realized that he was being assessed too. “Dylan Meredith James.” He flexed his arms. “You wanna make something of that?”
“Bookworm.” The tall bald leader of this motley group of refugees spoke up. “These people saved us.”
Tai glanced at the man and dismissed him. No steel there. “Look, Dylan. You walk out onto the loading dock dressed in those bright shiny spacesuits-from-outside and everybody is gonna know who you are, which means everybody is going to know that the hulk is probably unguarded.”
“The hulk is called the Venture,” Sara Lorelle, with the dark hair and intense brown eyes, said. She had steel in her voice that defied her slight, endurance-runner frame, and was mid-twenties in age, if he had to guess. Tai was beginning to like these newcomers after all.
“No, you call it the Venture,” Tai said. “We call it”—he grinned—“a business opportunity. Dylan… Bookworm, we need to hide that you’re here for as long as possible. That might keep the scavengers off your old ship for a little while, which will give us time to plan a”—his grin broadened—“hostile takeover.”
“Like the Jadron Incident,” Bookworm said. The steel had left his eyes to be replaced with some sort of dreamy remembrance.
Tai shrugged. “Yeah, just like that, whatever the hell that is.” He glanced at Kina and Hela. “Get them dressed.”
***
Vekan stared through the steel-glass at the new hulk. Red and black, human script on the side, she could, of course, read Anglic, but she didn’t bother to decipher the truncated word.
This was a broken ship full of titanium and other goodness. That was all she needed to know. She would use the funds from this ship to ascend the ranks of the vul, securing her position in their hierarchy.
Her pack-mate Felek had gone missing. She assumed he was dead; he was, after all, dealing with that Cauder cub. Felek had held her back in the pack, held her back because of his blunders; now she had the opportunity she craved. Now she would make a name for herself, and the howling wind of the vul tribes would learn her name, and she would be Alpha, and all would yip when she walked by.
“Closer,” she said to Brec. “Bring us closer.”
Brec, the vul pilot, a youngling like Vekan, adjusted the controls. “There is a hole already cut in the hull.” He laid a hand upon her arm. Warm thoughts flooded through her for a moment. He was her bedmate, and they would have many cubs together in the future.
“It may be a trap,” she said. “We will cut our own hole.” She stroked the fur of his shoulder and then glanced back at the twenty vul seated behind her in the ship, all younglings out to make a name. They carried their blade-guns—long-barreled semiautomatic pistols with sharp edges sticking out four inches from the muzzle, making an effective bayonet. The claw-gloves, which they wore over their spacesuits in combat, were tucked into their belts.
Behind them a chyros demolition team were preparing the cutting charges. Shegas and Irin clung to the deck plates with the talons on their six feet as the vul ship changed course, while their hands worked on the explosives. Their long muscular bodies absorbed the G-forces, and their almost humanlike torsos leaned forward to study the charges.
“Will you be ready?” Veka asked.
“Do not be insulting.” Shegra’s striped fur bristled at the vul’s tone. Her large catlike eyes narrowed as she stared at Vekan. “We will be ready. Just don’t forget to pay us.” She smiled, her saber-fangs protruding below her lips. “That would not be wise.” She returned to her task.
Another expense, but worth it.
“Take us to the other end of this hulk, the”—Vekan growled her humor—“Vent.” A fitting name. “We will enter there.”
“Yes, Vekan,” Brek said.
***
Tai clambered out of the Mary-May. He stretched, slung his pacifier shotgun barrel down over his right shoulder, and walked toward the small group surrounding his mother.
—She is not happy, Tairon, but she has agreed, Reginous sent the thought. —This will take quite a bit of skill.
“Which is what makes it fun,” Tai said.
“What the hell is that?” Bookworm asked.
“What?” Tai tipped his head to one side. “Oh, the Drift. That’s Sweet-Sap. He’s a Scholar.”
“It’s a plant. It looks like a tall bit of shrubbery with… It looks like a frecking Christmas tree.”
“A what?”
“Christmas. Old religious tradition… Never mind. That’s a Scholar?”
Sweet-Sap swept toward Tai on hundreds of tiny root-feet. A swishing sound always accompanied the approach of a Drift.
“Yup, Drifts are highly intelligent, incredibly focused, and effectively immortal. Can you thi
nk of anything better to pore over dusty old books?”
“Immortal?” Sara asked.
“Yeah, they bud every so often. The old plant dies, the new one grows up with all the memories of the original. Never cross a Drift, they don’t forget, and they are just about the most dangerous species on Haven.”
Bookworm laughed. “Dangerous. Ha.”
“This is Hollow Space; nothing is as it seems. And that is Sweet-Sap-Rising, a high-muckety-muck in the Scholar’s Guild. They arbitrate the law here, Dylan, what little law there is, so yeah, never cross a Drift. Now, play it chill, old son, we have deals to forge.” Tai looked around the dock as Sweet-Sap-Rising swished toward him, deliberately ignoring the approaching Scholar. The deck was swarming with scavenger crews getting their ships ready, checking their weapons, strapping armor over their spacesuits.
Nearly five hundred meters long and fifty wide, the loading deck was one of twelve such decks on the station. This deck, called Cipher Six, was in a neutral zone, which is why Tai docked the Mary-May here, being relatively safe from his mother’s interference.
Miriam stalked across the deck behind Sweet-Sap-Rising. Her bodyguards were twitchy, because Commander Haggard of the lawkeepers, the station’s small and overextended police force, stalked right along beside Miriam Cauder.
Which was rather like two jungle cats sniffing around each other before battle commenced.
Haggard was human, blocky, and powerful. He could best a weak kronac in an arm-wrestle on a good day, an impressive feat of strength for a human. He wore the black and gold uniform with graceless disregard, but the semiautomatic Dorian Piercer in the cut-down holster on his left hip glistened in the lights of the deck. Tai heard he took it to bed with him and cleaned it every morning.
Not a man to step in front of, Haggard.
Which was a shame, because that was precisely what Tai intended to do.
***
Linus smiled a slow smile as he saw Vekan’s ship head for the back of the Venture. “Coward,” he grunted. “Take us to that nice little hole Tai left.”
